Theater Stand
So far, we have been fortune enough to see actual photos of the previous stands and mobiles over the years and surviving copies crop up in places like fan conventions and eBay. BUT there's one piece of promotional cardboard that has yet to see daylight soon after the film left the theaters: the lighted two sided stand sent to many theaters by Universal Pictures!
Back in 2011, I made up an entire page on this incredibly rare piece of Xanadu....and here's what I wrote:
As mentioned elsewhere in this site, one of the rarest Xanadu promotional items was a slim lighted stand that was sent to movie theaters. It approximately stood five feet tall and 2 feet wide and it back lit pictures from the movie on both sides. I mention “approximately” as this description is based solely from personal rusty memory from the opening weekend of 1980. I do clearly remember gawking at this colorful cardboard monolith that was placed next to the snack bar, constipating how to sneak off with it under my jacket without getting caught. Needless to say, this bold blind plan never got beyond my dizzy little head.
There have been many stands promoting the soundtrack and its first singles, thanks to the aggressive efforts of MCA Records, but Universal Studios (which was also a division of MCA inc.) only designed one stand for the theaters which probably makes this stand rarer. Even more so are the pictures of the damned thing. The late lamented Xanadu Memorabilia Room site had a picture that I managed to print out, but thanks to a coupe of moves, that too is now lost into eternity…..damn it.
This stand has been mentioned briefly a couple of times in this site, but without the aid of visual evidence….until now, thanks to my barely functional PhotoShop skills. Below is a visual “approximate” of this rare gem.
According to Brian of the old “Memorabilia” site, each monolith came in a large box with an instruction booklet on how to assemble it. The poor theater employee would have to not only build but figure out how to wire and insert the light bulbs into it…safely.
The purple base had the movie credits printed in white and it held the only loose movable piece, a cut out of ELO’s logo.
As mentioned, this is approximate, so I don’t know exactly what pictures that were used for this piece, but one would get the idea of what level of excitement this stand was trying to generate, so pretty much any action –paced photos were used no matter what.
Lately, I’ve been seeing the soundtrack signs going for between 50 to 75 bucks when they spring up on eBay. I can barely imagine what the price tag will be should this dodo bird crop up. Happy hunting and bankruptcy filing, gang!!
In October of 2019, thanks to the detective work of David Mas, there is now actual photographic evidence of this elusive stand.
Not much is know about this photo; it certainly looks like Olivia Newton-John visiting to what appears like a movie premiere of sorts and is seen standing next to the stand.
It's not a full view of the stand, but at this point, we'll take what we can get!! (Hell, there were more details than I could remember!)
